Flow cytometry is an analytical technique used in a number of applications to measure physical and/or chemical properties of biological or nonbiological particles as they flow in a sample fluid, often an aqueous liquid medium, through an investigation cell. Flow through the cell may be investigated by a variety of techniques, including subjecting the flow to electrical, acoustic and/or optical signals in measuring and analyzing responses to detect and evaluate particles in the sample.
In order to increase the number of samples that may be processed, a flow cytometer may be coupled to process sample fluids provided by an autosampler. A number of flow cytometer manufacturers have specially designed autosamplers that connect and interface with their flow cytometer product. Such coordinated design between the flow cytometer and autosampler provides convenience to the user, but may limit the combinations of different autosamplers and flow cytometers that may be used in combination. Furthermore, some flow cytometers may not be provided by a manufacturer that also provides an autosampler with a coordinated design, which may limit the utility of the flow cytometers to processing only manually provided sample fluid batches.
Although it may be possible in some circumstances to adapt an autosampler and flow cytometer that do not have a coordinated design to operate together, such adaptation may often be difficult to achieve and my result in poor interconnection of system components and/or poor space utilization.